The new case was the third reported in the county, health officials said.

“It is a 45-year-old man who traveled to Toronto,” said a spokeswoman for the county Health Department, saying the unidentified man was hospitalized.

The new case brings to 45 the number of possible SARS cases in New York State – 20 of them in New York City – and officials said all 45 had traveled to Asia or Canada, and “there continues to be no evidence of community-acquired cases in New York State.”

Meanwhile, Toronto pulled out all the promotional stops and offered bargain-basement deals galore yesterday to entice tourists – even as the area reported two more SARS cases.

The two new victims, one probable and one suspected, were both nurses who treated SARS patients in the Toronto area.

“For us, this is a setback,” said Dr. Donald Low, chief of microbiology at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital.

“We would like not to see this happen, but we have to remember that we still have active disease in SARS units and the potential always exists that a transmission could occur,” Low said.

The SARS global epidemic has infected more than 5,600 people in 25 countries and killed 372, according to the World Health Organization.